A Christchurch mother is disgusted a brothel madam who illegally employed her 16-year-old daughter as a stripper in a graphic sex act has received an “appallingly light” sentence.

Anna Anastazja Horlor, 59, who operated four Christchurch brothels employing 80 workers, was sentenced yesterday in the Christchurch District Court to six months home detention and 200 hours community work on two charges of receiving income from underage sex workers.

See full story by MARTIN VAN BEYNEN – The Press http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/4447807/Brothel-madams-sentence-appalling Horlor lives in a two-storey house in a private lane in Beckenham near the foot of the Port Hills. The house is worth about $850,000.

The offences occurred at the Atami Bathhouse in central Christchurch in 2007.

The legal minimum age to work as a prostitute or stripper is 18.

Judge David Saunders said he was stopping short of a jail sentence because denunciation of the offences could be achieved by Horlor’s name becoming public and the loss of her brothel manager’s certificate.

She could now have no direct involvement in the industry, he said. Home detention was a serious sentence, and Horlor would be required to put something back into the community.

The mother of one of the former strippers said the sentence seemed “appallingly light”. She cannot be named because her daughter has name suppression.

She said her daughter, a former Manchester St prostitute who stripped at the club on eight occasions in performances that contained sex acts with various devices and audience participation, was troubled.

“If she was the daughter of a doctor from Fendalton I’m sure the court would have looked at it differently,” she said. “My girl was only 16 and completely off the rails. “She may have been safer than out on the street, but it was still exploitation.

“So many people don’t seem to have a problem with that. It makes you worry about society.”

She had tried to make her daughter leave the club, but her daughter would have cut off all contact with home if she was pushed too hard.

Horlor was also sentenced for employing in 2007 a 17-year-old Japanese homestay pupil who told Horlor she was 18 but was unable to produce her passport. Horlor made no further inquiries.

The girl started work as a stripper and within weeks was working as a prostitute, with up to 14 clients a night.

The judge said Horlor’s guilty plea to the two charges had avoided the need for the complainants to give evidence and the embarrassment that would entail.

Horlor was of mature years, had no previous convictions and was an intelligent woman, he said. She had qualifications but had made a lifestyle choice to work in the sex industry. Letters to the court attested to her personal qualities, and no-one suggested she was irresponsible about her obligations. She and her husband, Russell Dillon Horlor, had always sought legal advice on their obligations, the judge said.

Judith Ablett-Kerr, QC, for Horlor, said her client cared about the young women who worked for her and “helps to protect them”. Horlor had not intended to breach the law and had sought advice on her obligations to the 16-year-old.

“I didn’t really want to get into this, but this young lady was working on the streets as a prostitute before she was taken on as a stripper,” Ablett-Kerr said.

“Her safety was actually enhanced by being in the Atami Bathhouse and that was, of course, one of the major advantages of having such institutions.”

Crown counsel Lisa Preston told the court that youth was “currency” in the sex industry and people like Horlor had a high level of responsibility. The Japanese girl had been on her own in New Zealand for two years and was particularly vulnerable when she applied to work at the club. Horlor had failed to make the required checks.

The 16-year-old was “no less vulnerable” because of her troubled background, Preston said.

“She is exactly the type of young girl who will present herself to an operator like Horlor,” she said.